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Emma Rosegarden
Emma Rosegarden QC is a Senior Barrister for the Defence, a jurist and a supervisor at the City of Menevia Law School. Blessed to have been mentored by the current Master of the Rolls and her father-in-law, Ramsey Rosegarden when made a pupil-barrister, she is currently the mentor to Imogen Adelsbach. Well-known for her determination to defend her clients, Emma has built a reputation over her career as a defence lawyer for her tact, discernment and oratory. Appearance A mixed-race woman, she bears both Bretic and Imperial features. Reaching an average height, she has high, sharp cheekbones, small lips, and a narrow jaw; a testament to her Bretic ancestry. Olive-skin, deep-set brown eyes, an aquiline nose, and thick dark hair are an indication of her Colovian lineage. She stands confident and commanding, despite her height and carries herself with the same air. Yet, she is not a fierce or vicious woman, and her friends, colleagues – even her clients – will claim she is of a gentle, but assertive nature. Personality Deeply passionate and compassionate, she possesses a merciful and forgiving soul. However, one shouldn’t take her forgiving nature to be incompatible with serving justice. Rather, these are things she sees go hand-in-hand and in her mind justice cannot go without the other. Protective, she is always willing to stand up and defend others whether or not she likes them, so long she believes it is fair and right to do so. A believer in equity. Sceptical about nobility and sympathetic to the commoner, yet she remains all the same respectful to authority. An intellectual and a lawyer, she is driven by a deep curiosity to discover and uncover the truth. History Origins Born to an aspirational middle-class family in the small village of Ladbrooke in the region of Tunwick, she was the eldest of three; her younger siblings Anthony and Luciana being four and seven years her junior respectively. Her father, Ariston Pretorius was a Colovian immigrant, who upon arriving in Menevia met Cassandra Dutton, and the two quickly fell in love before marrying. They were bookbinders and owned a printing press in their shop. Naturally, she grew up under their influence, placing emphasis on literacy skills and self-learning through reading books. She and her siblings had the opportunity to attend the grammar school in the town of Tunwick (for their village had no such thing.) Here, she found a love (and talent!) for education. When she graduated from grammar school, Emma decided to continue her studies and attended the University of Wayrest. Receiving her Bachelor of Arts at 20, she contemplated using her degree to a postgraduate degree in Law. Writing home to her parents for their advice, she was pleased the find they more than just supported her decision, but strongly encouraged it. Though she would visit home whenever the chance arose, Emma lost this chance in 4E 6. Tunwick became victim to a series of coordinated, widespread bandit and gang attacks. Then she received a letter from Ariston and learnt that Anthony and Luciana had been arrested on accounts of being in league with the criminals, working with them against the locals. However, having not completed her law degree, Emma knew she would be unable to give legal aid. Still compelled to return, she packed her bags and arrived at her village. But much too late. Her siblings were executed, her mother perished in a shop fire, and her father was convalescing – but comatose - from his injuries. The tragedy was tempered when no one from the village would look her in the eye, let alone speak with her. She desperately tried to wheedle information out of the locals; just what happened? Why exactly, and on what grounds were her siblings executed? Receiving no word from them, she came to believe their execution was a gross miscarriage of justice and was struck with grief and outrage against the villagers and Lord-Protector Aldwyn. After all, she knew her siblings. Yet, her grief turned to frustration: the accused, whether guilty or innocent, and whatever the weight of their crimes should always have a defence advocate, and all miscarriages of justice should be kept to an absolute minimum. She stayed by her father’s side till he too, gave up his spirit. Academic Years She returned to university shortly thereafter, knowing her parents would have wished her to continue and this with her newfound desire to become a barrister pushed her to complete her studies. Emma received her Bachelor of Law at 26, and decided to come to Menevia City, with hopes of gaining entry into the Lawyer's Guild (of which had the reputation for its honesty, but also producing highly competent solicitors and the best barristers in Menevia.) Upon becoming a member, she immediately attended an Inn of Court, studying for her bar exam while working as a criminal-law solicitor. During her time at the Inn, she would – alongside many other students – be tutored by various barristers. After some years, she undertook a bar exam and passed it, qualifying her for Law School where she was further mentored by her supervisor, Ramsey Rosegarden, a highly principled man of integrity. It was during her pupillage that she learnt what it really meant to be a defence barrister. She embraced his philosophy of defending the rights of her clients and serving the law. Where the prosecution served justice by prosecuting the accused and finding justice for the victim, she would defend the accused, and prevent retribution – the overstepping of ‘justice’ – and revenge against her client; the very things that went against justice and would remain incompatible with it. She learnt that it was not about gaining acquittals for every case, but making sure the client received the punishment they deserved, even if that meant no punishment at all (after all, not everything as so black-and-white.) Acting as the ‘other side of the coin’ of justice to the prosecution, the two must work together to find the truth, and deliver what is just. Emma admired her mentor, who taught her more than just what was needed to make for a competent barrister. Ramsey sensed that Emma held some hidden hate, a sort of bitter desire for revenge. Taking her aside one day, he frankly told her that an important part of being a lawyer, and a defence barrister especially, was forgiveness. After all, how can one defend if they cannot forgive? And if they cannot defend, how can justice be met? Though it would take her some time, she was finally able to understand his teachings and merged the notions of justice and forgiveness, and forgave Lord Protector Aldwyn in his blundering conviction against her siblings. Although it was perhaps one of the hardest things she’d ever done, she felt at peace upon forgiving him. However, this did not mean she let the principles of preventing miscarriages of justice slip from her heart. After her graduation from Menevia Law School, she was made a junior barrister and it was in this year of 4E 9 that she married sweetheart Esdras Rosegarden, a fellow barrister and prosecutor, and the son of Ramsey. The newlyweds would produce a son in the same year, and named him David. In the same year, Ramsey was elected as the Exalted Master of the guild alongside Patriarch Jeptha Cottan. He was later admitted as the Master of the Rolls on the Closed Council. Emma could not be gladder. While the Rosegardens were known for their forgiving, merciful nature and equal desire for justice, she knew Ramsey was a man of integrity. Legal career Though she was no longer under Ramsey's (official) guidance, Emma would at times, ask for his advice. With a rigid determination, Emma tackled all her cases and zealously defended each client in court. She has a colourful record of winning, losing and having cases with 'messy' results where both she and the Prosecution won and lost in some parts. And through it all, she would continue to push, wanting justice for her clients - whether that be a fair and reasonable punishment or an acquittal altogether - and viciously tear apart anything that felt like a false accusation. Over the years, she began to write a number of essays and commentaries for the guild, published by the Law School. 4E 17 saw her reputation and success as a defence barrister grow, and she was appointed as a Queen's Counsel. In that same year, she turned her attention back to Tunwick. A young man, Robert Tremayne was accused of the Lord Protector Aldwyn's murder. Memories of past came to surface - the bandit massacres, the hamfisted executions and imprisonments of townsfolk, and of her siblings - and these caused unrest within the barrister. Travelling back to her hometown, Emma offered to represent Robert in court on the hopes that she can prevent a(nother) miscarriage of justice. However, she could not deny the desire to find and uncover the truth upon hearing of Tunwick's burghers - from peasant to middling sort - demanding Aldwyn answer for the massacres that took place in 4E 6. She met with her client and taught him how to hold his ground during the cross-examination. She then reviewed the evidence with a keen eye, dissecting every facet of it. Robert never fully explained the situation, and she never asked, relying on the case file instead. On the day of the trial, facing against an intimidating (acting) judge, the Baron of Reywell, with the prosecution witnesses as members of the nobility, a fear and anxiety filled her - but then it fuelled her, not allowing herself or her client be intimidated by anyone, especially those of the aristocracy. And so she pushed, giving Robert a zealous defence; weaking the Prosecution's arguments, pointing out flawed evidence, and pulling apart witnesses' statements, using all she could to convince the judge and jury of Robert's innocence. With the trial over, a verdict was given: Robert was to sent into exile. Emma was able to cast doubt into Henry's mind, but she was not able to gain him an acquittal, as he failed to protect the Lord Protector, irregardless of what he may or may not have done. Before Robert and his parents left Menevia, she gifted him with a coin-pouch, food and drink for the road - and a pair of gambling dice. Although no words were said between her and Sholto, she felt that he knew of her origins in Tunwick. Embittered, the young man detested the woman, believing an injustice to have occured, and that she was simply a criminal-sympathiser, and nothing more than an oppurtunistic "middling-sort" (a group he always had a low opinion of.) But Emma did not come to Tunwick so a young man can sneer at her. With the trial over and her job completed, she returned to the city shortly. In 4E 18 she was a co-defence counsel to colleague Nathan Roedecker, acting as the Defence, and her husband as the Prosecution. A young man, Isaac Adelsbach was the accused in a murder trial and his younger sister Imogen the defence witness. As it was told, Isaac, in defence of his sister (who was unconscious, and later hospitalised at the time) attacked her abuser, and intentionally or not, killed him. The victim of Isaac, Gareth Adelsbach was their foster father, and supposedly a violent and abusive man. While the Prosecution and Defence pushed back on forth on their arguments, the Defence had stronger, harder evidence (from hospital documents and records to witness statements from previous foster children of Gareth.) Further to this, the Defence drew on the fact that the murder was not pre-meditated, and therefore there was no intention. This, coupled with them driving home the point of neccesity and self-defence, and a sympathetic judge and jury, Isaac was acquitted of all charges. In 4E 24, Emma was surprised to see Imogen, now a family-law solicitor come to the Inn of Court she was a member of. The young lawyer expressed her interest in becoming a barrister, and attended many sessions at the inn, participating in every moot held. Every solicitor that attended the Inn were, in some way trained by the barristers, and Emma made note of the friendship between her in-law, Shelby Rosegarden and Imogen. The two had supposedly, befriended at university when studying Law, each having the same ambition of becoming a barrister. Although she expected an awkwardness to rise when Imogen recognised her husband and he her, it seemed the solicitor bore the prosecutor no ill will, knowing he was doing his job. When Imogen passed her bar exam in 4E 27 and called to the Bar alongside Shelby and two other friends, Donatien and Niamh Emma sat back and wondered where each would go. Imogen acquired her pupillage at the very same chambers Emma worked at, and by chance, became her student. Remembering her lessons with Ramsey, Emma was set on shaping the pupil-barrister into a defence lawyer as best she could, coming to care for her student (if even seeing a bit of herself in her) not just on academia and how well she could argue, but on the traits one needed to groom, gain and grow to'' truly'' become a defence barrister. Talents Learned in the law, she is a proficient defence barrister. As a lawyer, she does not give up on her clients, even when they give up on themselves, and will use everything in her arsenal to defend them. As a skilled orator, she is able to pick apart and destroy the weaknesses in another’s argument, and then use that to build her own. Trained in both rhetoric and dialectic. Intuitive and discerning, she uses her ‘gut-feeling’ and judgements on people to aid her in trials and legal cases. In hand with her being a prominent defence barrister, she is also a skilled, caring teacher – one who puts her students before herself, and strives to teach more than just in the lecture room, but out and equip them with skills both for the courtroom, and for life. Family Esdras Rosegarden - Husband, aged 46. A prosecutor, Queen's Counsel and the Head of Chambers at Golden Court Chambers. A godly man of integrity and a gentleman, Esdras' youth was marked by him defending those who could not defend themselves against bullies, often coming to pick fights with them. Very few times, did he ever win and Esdras became accustomed to the prospect of someone bigger and stronger standing over him as he lay beaten on the ground. Yet, he would never pick fights with those who could not defend themselves - and use words instead of fists. Discovering this certain skill, he began to use words against his - and others' - bullies, accusing and criticising. And where they would beat him with their fists, he would beat them with words, exposing their wrongdoing and turning the minds of others to criticise them. Although this did not neccesarily stop ''all the beatings, it was a victory - at least in his eyes. Meeting Emma during his university years, the pair held mutual feelings towards each other - and she only found his clumsy, goofy personality charming. He courted her, and they married in 4E 9. Protective of his family, he does all he can to be a caring father and loving husband, afraid that if he were not one of those it would affect the other, and hurt his family. '''David Rosegarden' - Son, aged 19. Blessed to be a mother, Emma dotes on her only son. Receiving his mother's compassion and his father's stubborness, David is a strong-headed boy, running to tackle problems head-on. Currently, he is a student at the University of Wayrest, studying towards his Arts degree. He writes home frequently, occasionally sending gifts for his cousins, or a birthday gift for his parent. Although from a family of lawyers, David is drawn towards Medicine, and wishes to further his studies in this area after graduation - but only with his parents' blessing, of course. Category:Menevia Category:Characters Category:Commoner Category:Breton